IF A WEEK is a long time in politics, then 30 years seems a very short time in Liverpool’s life.

But Professor Michael Parkinson CBE, director of the European Institute for Urban Affairs at Liverpool John Moores University, can’t believe how quickly it has passed – or how far the city has come.

“Liverpool is endlessly challenging and fascinating,” he says.

Professor Parkinson came to Liverpool in 1962 and first wrote about the city in 1985: Liverpool on the Brink – the tale of the Militant Tendency and the city’s political, financial and economic travails.

“I wrote the story as it unfolded, trying to catch a word with the people involved to make sense of the confusion. I was probably carried away by the rhetoric of the times but my book had an important sub-title – One City’s Struggle Against Government’s Cuts. The crisis was not just Militant political manipulation.

“Even if they overdid it, Militant had a point. Militant was a consequence, not the cause, of the city’s economic problems.

“The campaign did collapse and in political terms it was a disaster, but government policies for the city weren’t fair and weren’t helping.

“I remember Alfred Stocks, the city’s chief executive, saying to me ‘Michael, every year I tell the civil servants in London the money you give us isn't right. They nod and agree. They say we’ll bear it in mind for next year’. But they never did, at least not until Hatton and the rest came along.”

There was a lot of sound and fury – though less than met the eye.

“The Labour council was less of a coherent group than a collection of different and dissident groups and personalities. Tony Mulhearn really did believe the revolution should and would happen. Derek Hatton was always going to be a survivor. Poor John Hamilton, a decent man, became a sad figure twisting in the wind. Tony Byrne, the brains behind it all, was absolutely not a Militant. He just wanted to build houses for the people and was happy twisting Thatcher’s tail to do that. Of the immediate followers, many hearts – if not heads – were in the right place.”

But most paid a heavy price. Adds Michael: “Liverpool got terrible headlines. It harmed its image and morale – inside and outside the city.

“Nevertheless it proved a warning bell for some of the local economic elites who had previously neglected city affairs. It frightened them and changed their behaviour.

“Liverpool’s politics and leadership have seriously improved since that time.”

But how much did Militant affect the economy?

“Not very much,” says Professor Parkinson. “Figures show the city’s economy was in a tail spin when they came in – and it kept going down after they left, although there was an immediate bounce back. The economy did not recover until the late 1990s and it’s amazing how far the city has come and it’s never going back to where it was.”